OSLO (Reuters) - After the coldest start to a year in more
than a decade, spring will bring relief to the northern
hemisphere from Thursday.

Bucking the trend of global warming, the start of 2008 saw
icy weather around the world from China to Greece. But despite
its chilly start, 2008 is expected to end up among the top 10
warmest years since records began in the 1860s.

This winter, ski resorts from the United States to
Scandinavia have deep snow. Last year, after a string of mild
winters, some feared climate change might put them out of
business.

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In many countries crops and plants are back on a more
"normal" schedule. Cherry trees in Washington are on target to
blossom during a March 29-April 13 festival that has sometimes
mistimed the peak blooms.

"So far 2008, for the globe, has been quite cold, only just
above the 1961-90 average," said Phil Jones, head of the
Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia which
supplies global temperature data to the United Nations.

"This is just January and February, so two coolish months
comparable to what happened in 1994 and 1996," he told Reuters.

The northern spring formally begins on March 20 this year.

And an underlying warming trend, blamed by the U.N. Climate
Panel on human use of fossil fuels, is likely to reassert
itself after the end of a La Nina cooling of the Pacific in the
coming months. There were similar conditions in 1998 and 2005,
the hottest so far, Jones said.

SNOW AND SANDSTORMS

China suffered its worst snowstorms in a century in January
and February. At least 80 people died and the government
estimated costs at more than 150 billion yuan ($21 billion),
including animal deaths and crop losses.

Sandstorms hit Beijing on Tuesday and residents rushed to
hide from the dust mixed with petals from the city's magnolia
trees.

During the northern winter, snows also fell in unusual
places such as Greece, Iraq and Florida. Experts say climate
change will bring more swings as part of a warming that will
bring more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.

U.S. ski resorts reported above average snowfall.

"We're 90 percent sure we will extend the season for at
least a couple of weeks toward the end of April," said Jeff
Hanle, a spokesman for the Aspen Skiing Co. in Colorado. The
mountain town has had 400 inches of snow, the normal amount for
the whole season, which still has a month to go.

Skiers "have got big smiles on their faces," he said.

"It's been a good season all around," said Tom Horrocks,
spokesman of the Killington Ski Resort in Vermont. He said
meteorologists said more consistent snows were typical for a La
Nina season in the northeast.

But not all places have been chilly -- Jones said western
and northern Europe were the warmest parts of the northern
hemisphere in the first two months of 2008.

NASA satellite data this week showed the thickest and
oldest ice around the North Pole has been disappearing.

Finland had its warmest winter on record. High-speed
ferries between Helsinki and Tallinn in Estonia, normally
halted for months by winter ice on the Baltic Sea, started
earlier than ever in mid-March.

In Norway, many ski resorts have deep snow even though the
winter has been the third warmest on record -- scientists say a
spinoff of climate change may be more precipitation.

"Turnover is 16 percent over the best season of 2004," said
Andreas Roedven, head of Norway's Alpine Ski Area Association.

Electricity prices in the Nordic region halved this month
to 27.5 euros ($43.48) per megawatt hour from late 2007 highs
because hydropower reservoirs were full and warm temperatures
curbed heating demand.

Senior officials from about 190 nations will meet in Bankok
from March 31-April 4 to start work on a new long-term treaty
to combat climate change to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.